Peanuts

This article is part of a larger article titled "100+ Healthiest Foods On Planet Earth."  Read it here.

The peanut is a plant probably first domesticated in Paraguay, which is now a worldwide source of a huge range of products. Not technically a nut, but a legume, the peanut is a fantastically versatile food that can be eaten raw, roasted or boiled, made into peanut butter, peanut oil and peanut flour, and found in a huge variety of culinary traditions. With a stunning nutritional profile and some surprising weight loss and disease prevention benefits, the peanut is a genuine health food that you should really add to your diet if possible.

Nutritionally, peanuts are a fantastic source of both macronutrients and micronutrients. While high in calories – 100g will cost you 567 calories – the peanut is very high in protein and healthy fats. 100g of peanut contains 26g of protein, over half of your Daily Value (DV), and also contains a lot of fat. Don’t worry about saturated fats though: peanuts contain 24g of monounsaturated and 16g of polyunsaturated fats for every 7 grams of saturated fat. With both good plant-based sources of protein and healthy fatshard to come by in many western diets, the peanut is a very nutritionally balanced food.

On top of that, peanuts also have an impressive amount of essential minerals: 100g provides 42% DV of Magnesium, 32% DV of fibre, 25% DV of iron and 20% DV of potassium. Dietary fibre is essential for good digestive health, and the essential minerals just mentioned not only perform a range of functions in the body; they help you avoid everything from present day poor athletic and cognitive performance to cardiovascular diseases later in life. Not only that, but iron, potassium and magnesium deficiencies are all very common.

In addition to being a fantastically balanced source of nutrition, peanuts are also the source of ongoing research into its many health benefits. The first of these might surprise you: peanuts have been proven to help with weight loss: studies have shown that weight loss regimens are improved by the addition of tree nuts into the diet in two ways; greater compliance with the diet and greater weight loss total. This is quite surprising, as peanuts are extremely calorie dense and high in fats. However, the evidence is there, so for those of you looking to lose some weight, eating nuts as healthy snack may be a positive step.

Beyond the benefits associated with weight loss, peanuts are also great at combating some of the most common killers in the developed world. To begin with, peanuts contain a compound called beta-sitosterol, which protects against colon, prostate and breast cancer, and in relatively high amounts. Not only this, but studies focusing on nuts more generally have shown that tree nuts can help protect against cardiovascular disease; and that nuts even lower your risk of gallstone disease. With all these being such common causes of death, the peanut is something you might really benefit from including in your diet.